This NJ Restaurant Among Best New Eateries In America: New List

NEW JERSEY — One restaurant in New Jersey was named among the 50 best new eateries in America this year by the men’s fashion, style and culture magazine Esquire.

The 2023 list, published Tuesday, includes restaurants from well-known food hubs such as New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as other major metro areas including Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Miami, Atlanta, Honolulu, Chicago, Louisville, New Orleans, St Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and more.

The restaurant from New Jersey that made the list is Lita, a modern Iberian restaurant in Aberdeen Township that just opened in the spring. Esquire highlighted the depth of flavors in the Spanish and Portuguese dishes that come out of Lita's hearth and its kitchen, remarking on its "destination-worthy" status for authentic food.

"The hearth at Lita sees constant tending with a vigorously waved fan, the feeding of charcoal with a shovel, the movement of chicken and octopus," Esquire's reviewers wrote. "It is the thing you least expect to see inside a strip mall in central Jersey next to an old bowling alley, but then again, no one expected that a destination-worthy Iberian restaurant would be here."

Lita is the third restaurant from Neilly Robinson and Chef David Viana, also the owners of Heirloom Kitchen on Rt. 516 in Old Bridge and Heirloom at The St Laurent in Asbury Park. It is located at 1055 NJ-34 Aberdeen Township, NJ 07747.

"Lightly fried pieces of Manchego will make you rethink how cheese should be fried," writes Esquire. "The tuna tartare, dressed in ajo blanco and jalapeño, topped with roasted almonds, wrapped in a shiso leaf, and served atop a bed of ice? One of the most sublime bites you’ll have this year. The drinks, from Ricardo Rodriguez, have just enough of a culinary touch to swerve along with the food ... By night’s end, as you step out into the parking lot, you half expect the mosaic sidewalks of Lisbon."

Esquire noted that authenticity was a major theme this year among the restaurants. That was true for its Restaurant of the Year winner, Ilis in Brooklyn, where the chefs “prepared the fish as it would have been done centuries ago, wrapped in bark and cooked over flames.” It was also true across the country at Poltergeist in Los Angeles, where the chefs “gave us a wild, experimental take on the fish taco, which was dipped in masa and fried. Both felt genuine, and each was delicious.”

The magazine also named two eateries that earned Comeback of the Year titles and the coveted claim to Pizza Joint of the Year. Baroo in Los Angeles closed in 2018, but is now “decidedly all grown up,” Esquire wrote in naming it the comeback winner this year for the West Coast. On the East Coast, Superiority Burger in the East Village of New York City earned the comeback honor, with its tantalizing vegan burger offerings.

Meanwhile, sure to stir the pot among pizza aficionados is Nonno’s Family Pizza Tavern in Houston, which was named Pizza Joint of the Year.